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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992745">And I'm here for you, too</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Scribbles/pseuds/Inky_Scribbles'>Inky_Scribbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>?? i guess, Anxiety, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Wally West, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, LITERALLY, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02, Pre-Slash, Swearing, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Wally West, Touching, Uno f bomb, Wally West Needs a Hug, Wally West is Kid Flash, Wally West-centric, just manipulation and stuff, not edited, nothing major, you know the drill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:34:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Scribbles/pseuds/Inky_Scribbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For lack of anything better to do, he knocks.</p><p>It doesn’t take more than one time, and suddenly Dick is pushing away luxurious curtains to see Wally. The adrenaline hasn’t let up a single bit since he was in his room about twenty five minutes ago. In fact, at the sight of Dick’s face, his chest swells, and he has to resist the urge to latch onto him when he cracks the window open.</p><p>///</p><p>Wally's got a desperate yearning for something or other, and he can't get to the bottom of it. Luckily, Dick Grayson might have a way to help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Wally West</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>158</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And I'm here for you, too</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The fic i wrote last night was dark. so now some more happy stuff! slightly happier, at least. theres a hopeful ending and all that.</p><p>This also has nothing to do with any other works of mine in this fandom, although i guess it could fit in to the ace dick fics if you wanted it to.</p><p>And! i recommend you listen to "hello my old heart" by the oh hellos while reading. thats what i was writing this to, anyway</p><p>No warnings here except for a teensy weensy bit of swearing. And also its not edited.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a dark night. Winter is well past having started, but January's winds barely cast a glance against the windows. Snowflakes glitter in the light of orange street lamps out the windows, then disappear once it falls away. Wally has felt awake all night, staring wide eyed at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to come.</p><p>Darkness falls across his face as he turns it away from the window. His alarm clock shines out at him in square green letters: <i>11 : 34</i>.</p><p>He pulls the duvet up to his chin, although it isn’t particularly cold. He’d decided to turn up the heating for the night, even if the guilt cinched his heart slightly. But he’s allowed to feel warm, and no one’s ever told him directly that he can’t adjust his own room’s heating.</p><p>Still, the tiredness doesn’t hit. Uncle Barry would say that it’s something to do with the speed powers, probably. Wally would say it’s got something more to do with his frizzed up head.</p><p>Across the street, loud enough to hear if he listened, music throbbed in someone’s house. Probably teenagers. Other teenagers. People his age, who did the sort of thing that meant going out and listening to music loud enough that you can hear it across the street. Wally’s never exactly done any of that.</p><p>You’d need friends to do that, and all of Wally’s friends live scattered around the country, from Gotham to Happy Harbour. He smiles when he thinks of Gotham, such a weird and nasty place, but it still somehow managed to spit out a guy like Rob. He grins to himself, feels the slant of it against his chin, bumping dopily against the duvet.</p><p>A guy like Dick.</p><p>Suddenly, very suddenly, he has the grave urge to see him. A want buried deep inside of him that for some reason felt the need to dig itself out in that moment when he felt the smile, sweet against his lips.</p><p>Well, that sounds sappy. But he can’t help it. There’s no better a friend to find than Dick, and Wally knows in his self of selves that if he had to pick a person to go down with, it’d be him. His dorky smiles and dumb jokes, his weird habit of scratching each finger tip against his thumb when the excitement builds on missions.</p><p>He feels the urge to see him with every inch of skin, pulling and pulling, waiting for him to get up and go - to find Dick and hold him until every piece of him has touched and been touched by Dick. His heart sings with the urge, and he has no idea where it came from, but. Well.</p><p>He’s been feeling the energy building up inside of him since he woke up this morning, wild and yearning, urging him to leap to his feet and start running. He hadn’t known where to, and he had already been late for school, so he’d done his best to ignore it.</p><p>But now he has a direction. He has a way to point himself down, a path to forge and steps to take. He can get up. He can go.</p><p>There’s a tiny, scared thought soaking into his bones like cold water - the thought that he’s not allowed out past a certain time (namely, now). But he shivers that thought away, the very marrow in his fists trembling and quivering until the thought is shaken away. He’ll be back before they wake up.</p><p>As quietly as possible, he changes clothes, a Green Lantern hoodie Hal had gotten him a while ago, and a pair of grey sweatpants. The friction from running would keep him warm from the winter. He climbs out the window, shivering only a little at the fresh cold that falls into him, and drops down onto the tree a few feet away, then swings to the ground - nothing fancy like how Dick can do, but he’s seen him do similar things enough to get the idea.</p><p>Using the house key he’d gotten when he was fourteen, he unlocks the door and grabs the shoes Dick had fiddled with one day. After that, they’d barely worn down at all whenever he went running in them, although Wally couldn’t tell what material he’d switched out the soles with.</p><p>Then it’s just a matter of running. And, if he does say so, Wally finds himself pretty good at that. Just a little.</p><p>He takes the zeta tube to Newark (forgoing the Gotham ones), and then sprints the whole way to Wayne Manor. He’s sure there are security systems, but he runs straight through them - it’s only just eleven o’clock in this timezone, so they’ll still be awake - and uses the momentum to leap up the building and latch onto the wall. From there, there’s only a short climb up to Dick’s window.</p><p>For lack of anything better to do, he knocks.</p><p>It doesn’t take more than one time, and suddenly Dick is pushing away luxurious curtains to see Wally. The adrenaline hasn’t let up a single bit since he was in his room about twenty five minutes ago. In fact, at the sight of Dick’s face, his chest swells, and he has to resist the urge to latch onto him when he cracks the window open.</p><p>“Wally?” He doesn’t sound tired at all. Actually, he sounds just as awake as Wally feels. “What are you doing here? It’s past eleven.”</p><p>Dick’s hair passes over his eyes, and when blowing it away doesn’t work, he pushes it behind an ear with a frustrated breath. Wally’s never noticed how small his hands are, or how blue his eyes are. They really shine in Dick’s desktop light.</p><p>He ignores the question. “What are you still doing here? I thought you Gothamites patrolled at night. You know, like bats.” He shoots Dick a grin, and when Dick grins back, it’s the greatest feeling.</p><p>“Oh, you know. It’s a school night. Got to have some boundaries, you know?” He opens the window the whole way and Wally slips through, stumbling a little on some clutter Dick’d left out on his desk. He catches Wally on the shoulder, and the touch makes his heart burn with something bright and simmering. It’s a nice feeling.</p><p>Dick shivers and shuts the window, pushing the thick curtains back into place. It’s a lot warmer inside, which makes sense. Billionaires don’t really have to worry about heating bills.</p><p>Dick’s smile is radiant. Wally hasn’t seen him since Friday last week, he’s been so busy with school work recently. Barry’d benched him for a few days to get some stuff done, but apparently nothing had happened since he’d been gone, anyway. No missions, at least. Maybe it’s the distance, or maybe he’d just forgotten, but seeing Dick now, he seems so much brighter than usual. It suits him.</p><p>Not that he’s going to say any of that. Instead, he folds his hands behind his back to hide his fidgeting and offers Dick a smile of his own. “I’ve missed you,” is what comes out instead. Not any less embarrassing, exactly.</p><p>“Me too,” Dick agrees, almost instantly. “When are you coming back to the Mountain?”</p><p>“Soon,” he promises. And, internally, he tacks on a <i>hopefully</i>, and a small prayer to tuck underneath. He’s not religious, but he’d never tell his parents that. And a little extra help never hurt, just in case. “Just a project on the chemical composition of the atmosphere before plants and stuff happened.”</p><p>“Cool. Need any help with that?” It’s a joke, they both know he’s got it handled, but the sincerity in his eyes says something else. He’d probably help if Wally asked.</p><p>Wally smiles, leaning against Dick’s desk beside him, hands in his pockets like he’s being cool and not trying to hide how desperately he wishes he could just reach out and touch his best friend. He doesn’t even know why he’s feeling this way, it’s just somehow crawled under his skin and scrambled up his insides until all he can think about is wrapping himself securely in Dick’s arms.</p><p>So sappy.</p><p>But the feeling doesn’t leave, and the silence stretches, and for a short panicked moment, Wally wonders if Dick actually does have powers - if he can read Wally’s mind and can tell what he’s thinking about. He wonders if he’d be disgusted by knowing.</p><p>But Dick definitely would have told Wally by now if he had any powers. He’s pretty sure. That would have come before the secret identity, probably.</p><p>So the silence stretches - and for once, it truly feels like a silence. The manor is quiet. The city is so far away, and the walls must be thick enough that the sounds of machines and water must be blocked out completely.</p><p>“So,” Dick mumbles carefully, head tilted down but eyes on him, watching for a reaction. “What are you actually doing here?” His smile is careful too, and he tugs at his T-shirt sleeves (about three sizes too huge on him, a Gotham University logo on the front, and somehow looking adorable) in a gentle show of habit.</p><p>Wally’s heart jumps into his throat, and then drops down to his socks, and he’s not sure if it’s to do with the fact that Dick just asked him a question he can’t give an answer to, or if it’s to do with the fact that he just thought, in his own head, that Dick was adorable. “Uh.”</p><p>“Wally? You okay, dude?”</p><p>Wally looks away. He can’t tell if it’s a mistake, because seconds later Dick puts a hand on his shoulder and rubs slowly. Something in him feels, deep-seated and satisfied, the curl of satisfaction in his gut. Another moans, because he knows it won’t last forever, and it will never go past this.</p><p>The third part is terrified, because he has somehow fallen, head first and entangled, into the thick and pleasant warmth of loving, and he hadn’t even realised.</p><p>Something must have showed on his face, or maybe he’d leaned all too readily into the touch of a simple hand. Because suddenly Dick Grayson is in front of him, the wiry muscle of his arms wrapped tightly in a firm embrace around Wally, and he feels his knees go weak.</p><p>He melts, and it hurts. It burns with pleasure, and it aches with yearning, because he knows he’s never getting any more than this. And it isn’t enough by itself.</p><p>“If all you needed was a hug, you just had to ask,” Dick mumbles into Wally’s ear, a smile pressed into the junction between his neck and collar bone.</p><p>And Wally feels a sob split free from the cage his teeth, and he feels the heat of embarrassment burst over his skin in patches of blotchy pink. And the soft whimper that trails off when he tries to stifle the rest. Because he doesn’t just need a hug. He needs something else, something more, but he can’t find the energy to find out what, if the answer is even there for him to find. “I just…” the words fall short, stumbling and starting in short gasps. “I wanted to be… near to you.”</p><p>Dick’s smile is gone, but his arms grasp firmly, and with careful footsteps, he guides them towards the bed, not lifting his face from Wally’s neck and muttering soft sentences like “it’s gonna be okay”, and “if that’s what you need”, and “I’ve got you”.</p><p>They curl up in Dick’s bed, Wally comically larger than Dick, so small but still trying to cover every surface of him, like a protective blanket. Their hands meet, and Wally squeezes. Dick squeezes back, hard enough to hurt, but it almost satisfies the ache in his chest that wants and wants but will probably never get.</p><p>When the shivering tears have finally cleared away, and Dick is running his spare hand through Wally’s hair, there is a moment where Wally finally begins to worry over what Dick thinks about him, now. Their relationship barely ever went past jokes and one-armed hugs on the sofa during movie night, and now they’re cuddling in Dick’s bed in the middle of the night.</p><p>To the side of Dick, maybe even more pressing, he wonders what his parents would think of him. A boy, with another boy. In bed. Cuddling.</p><p>Cuddling.</p><p>Because Wally couldn’t keep his damn hands to himself.</p><p>“Walls,” Dick whispers. He must have noticed him tensing up or something. “Stop.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” is all he can bring himself to say. So stupid. Just giving in to his urges like a child.</p><p>“Stop.” Dick repeats, more firmly this time He turns them over so that he can see Wally’s face. Earlier, Wally had thought that they were bright. Now, they’re a glooming dark blue, the kind of colour that comes in icy caves and Autumn evening seaside trips. “You’re my friend. My best friend. I’ll do anything to help.”</p><p>Wally feels like crying all over again. Instead, “Killing people isn’t ethical.”</p><p>Dick snorts. The joke is weak, but Dick’s just the type not to care. Or maybe his humour is poorly presented jokes, whispered in the barely-glow of a desktop lamp, wrapped around someone else. “I stand by what I said.”</p><p>Wally can’t tell if he’s being serious anymore. Before, he would’ve thought it was a joke, but Dick’s relationship with Bruce has been rocky recently. He wonders if Dick would break a rule like that, just because he’s not on good terms with Bruce. Maybe if the situation called for it.</p><p>Still, he cracks a grin and grips Dick’s T-shirt tighter. He probably stole it from Bruce in a fit of pettiness. “Thanks,” he whispers, quiet.</p><p>“You’re my best friend,” he says, like that explains everything. Why, Wally wonders, out of all the people he could have chosen, Dick chose him - he couldn’t know. But he’s more than thankful. With a squeeze and a murmur, Dick smiles again, this time tucked away onto Wally’s breastbone. “Of course I’m there for you.”</p><p>He’s got to go soon, he doesn’t want his parents to know he left. But still, he closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of tears and sleep and Dick’s dried out deodorant, and allows himself to press a smile into Dick’s hair, too. “And I’m here for you, too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you enjoyed! Hopefully it was legible lol i am so tired</p></blockquote></div></div>
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